


The Brandy of the Damned

by Nokomis



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:09:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ill-advised detour leads My Chem to a town populated by the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from a George Bernard Shaw quote, “Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.” (Thanks, Pud!) This story is a fusion/crossover with a Stephen King short story, “You Know They’ve Got a Hell of a Band.” No knowledge whatsoever of that story is necessary to read this story.

No one had thought given it a second thought when the bus driver called out that he was taking a slight detour because the interstate was backed up for a few hours up ahead.

“Some fool flipped a tanker,” he’d said, and Bob had just nodded along with the rest of the band.

At this point, nothing on the road was even remotely novel anymore, and the way the bus slowed and weaved through curving country roads rather than the straight and speedy interstate was just another inconvenience as they grabbed at sliding water bottles and a box of Cheez-its, which tumbled out of Frank’s hands and sent bright orange crackers flying everywhere.

It wasn’t until nearly three, which was their scheduled time of arrival at the venue, that anyone really realized that they were a.) possibly lost forever in the wilderness, b.) completely out of range for their phones like they were in some cheap-ass horror movie remake and c.) completely fucked, as their bus driver kept muttering to himself as the road narrowed and the branches began to swipe at the sides and top of the bus.

“Can’t we just turn around?” Ray asked, peering out a window at the greenery that surrounded them. “Because this is getting a little too _Evil Dead_ for me, man.”

“Where am I gonna turn this bus around at?” their driver complained bitterly. “Road’s too narrow, and there are ditches on both sides and trees fucking everywhere.”

The bus continued to creep along, slowing with every turn as the road became more and more unmanageable. When the pavement gave way to gravel, Gerard came stumbling out of the bunk area, ink smeared on his hands and complaining about the bumpiness.

“I completely fucked up my drawing, what the fuck?” he said, peering out of the window. “We make a wrong turn?”

“The sign said to go this way,” called the driver defensively. “There was a detour.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t, like, one of those misleading signs crazy mutant serial killers put out to lure the unwary into their trap?” Gerard asked. Mikey snorted. 

“Don’t laugh, you’d probably be the first to get picked off,” Frank said helpfully. “They like to warm up on the easy pickin’s.”

“I’m not easy pickin’s,” Mikey protested as Frank snickered. 

“You’re all easy pickin’s,” Bob interjected. “Unlike me.”

He batted away the half-empty water bottle Frank chucked at him, laughing. Mikey continued to glare at his Sidekick, as if it would pick up a signal from the waves of angry glare being shot at it.

“Is this road even approved for commercial vehicles?” Ray called to the driver.

“Hell if I know,” came the reply. “I just know it’s about to get a lot bumpier, you might want to hold on tight.”

And with that, the bus jostled, sending loose garbage and junk flying everywhere.

“Fuck, give a better warning next time,” said Frank, who was now doused with water. “I was just taking a sip.”

The bus continued to bump along, the ride getting joltier and rougher by the minute. 

“This is so the wrong way, man,” said Gerard, pressing his forehead against the window so he could look out without getting his head banged. “Look at how close the trees are.”

“I’m trying,” gritted out the driver, who up until this point Bob had assumed had the patience of a saint. He’d been driving them all tour with minimal bitching about the geekiness-fueled shenanigans that typically happened while on the road.

The tree branches scraping at the windows and along the side of the bus got louder and louder, and through the front windshield Bob could see rather sizeable limbs being broken off as they hit into them. The bus had slowed down to a crawl, but that didn’t make the road any more passable.

“Don’t get us stuck,” Frank said, still patting at his wet shirt. “Are we still not getting a signal?”

“None,” Mikey said, tossing his Sidekick down beside him. “What about the CB?”

“All I’m getting is fuzz,” the driver called back. “Same with the radio.”

Gerard pulled away from the window, which left a red mark across his forehead. 

“That’s... that’s what always happens,” he said. There was no need to clarify that it always happened in _horror movies_ , right before someone got chopped into bits.

They all exchanged looks. 

“So, who’s the virgin?” chirped in Frank, and they all let out an uneasy laugh.

“Ray, he’s got the hair for it,” Mikey said, and Ray stuck his tongue out at them both.

They lapsed into silence, which made the atmosphere on the bus even creepier. It was never this quiet, there was always a movie or music in the background, and normally _someone_ would be talking. 

No one seemed willing to break the silence. Even Gerard didn’t seem inclined towards nervous babbling.

The bus was barely moving at a crawl. The foliage almost obscured the windshield; it was like the bus was pushing through a solid screen of greenery. The driver was hunched over the wheel, squinting out the window.

The silence began to feel oppressive, and Bob shifted in his seat, trying to think of something to say. It was like his mind was blank. Nothing was coming to him. 

“This is weird,” he finally said.

Frank gave him a grateful glance. “No shit.”

The bus driver gave out a cheer. “About fuckin’ time!”

The bus pushed through the last of the foliage. Mostly all that was in sight were fields and some trees. The road bumped back to gravel instead of dirt ruts, and then smoothed into concrete. 

The trees thinned even more. On the side of the road, a large wooden sign proclaimed, “WELCOME TO ROCK N ROLL HEAVEN, OREGON!”

“I didn’t think Punk’d was still on the air,” Mikey said, raising his eyebrow at the sign.

They rolled past the sign, slowly picking up speed.

“Really? Rock n Roll Heaven, Oregon?” Gerard said. 

“Is that like Intercourse in Pennsylvania?” Ray asked.

“What, this place was founded by hippies?” Frank cut in. 

Ahead, a small town appeared. There was a white trellis archway that reiterated that this was, in fact, Rock n Roll Heaven, despite all appearances to the contrary.

“This bus isn’t going to fit through that archway,” the driver announced. “I’m going to park it here.”

There were a few final jolts as the bus bumped off the pavement onto the gravel shoulder of the road, and then Frank practically bounded to the door. “Let’s get out of this fucking bus.”

Bob got up to follow, along with Ray and Mikey. Gerard looked hesitant, but then rose, too. “I guess it can’t hurt to explore. This place looks like fucking Mayberry.”

They filed off the bus, then surveyed the damage. There were scratched gouges all down the side, and a few cracks on the windshield. 

“You guys go ahead and stretch your legs,” said the driver. “I’m going to try to get through to management. Just be back in an hour!”

“Aye aye, cap’n,” Frank said, and they laughed as they walked towards the town.

It really did look like Mayberry, Bob thought, looking at the picturesque storefronts and hand-painted windows. Or a Norman Rockwell painting, he amended, as a girl in a blue dress practically skipped down the sidewalk to duck into what proclaimed to be an actual malt shop.

“Seriously?” he said, sort of gawking around.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Mikey agreed. 

“I wish I had a camera, this place is unreal,” Ray said.

Frank and Gerard fell behind, laughing at something in a window.

“Should we wait up?” Mikey asked, glancing back at his brother.

“They’ll catch up,” Ray said. “This place is the size of a Wal-Mart, how lost can we get?”

Bob nodded, though he felt a little uneasy about it. There was something kind of weird about this place. What sort of town only had one road to reach it? A road that was fucking overgrown with trees? Maybe the road went through the town itself to a more easily passed route, but...

For a town, it was kind of empty. They’d only seen a few people wandering about - generic looking people, for the most part, that just sort of blended in with the picturesque streets. None of the sorts of kids they usually saw, just people in plain clothes and the kind of dead eyes Bob associated with fast food employees who saw the same thing day after day.

He paused to glance in the window of furniture store. The chairs and plastic-covered couches inside seemed to be covered in a thick layer of dust, as though the owner did so little business they didn’t even care about presentation anymore.

“This is a sad town,” he said to Ray and Mikey, only when he looked up they were gone. He scanned up and down the street. They were nowhere to be seen, and neither were Frank and Gerard. 

“Huh,” he said. He decided not to be insulted, after all, Ray’d just said how tiny this town was. Wasn’t like they were going to lose each other or anything.

Ahead, a diner had a neon sign advertising pies. Maybe he’d go try one before hunting down his wily bandmates.

He had a hankering for some pie.

*

Bob settled in at the diner, where yes, everyone did know his name, and it wasn’t even in that vaguely creepy way that came with the peripheral sort of fame that he got from being the drummer in a rock band. 

The waitress - who he could swear was the spitting image of someone he knew - smiled as she served him pie he hadn’t yet asked for and later refilled his cheap brown mug with coffee. 

“Y’uns ain’t from around here, are ya?” she asked the second time she came by. She didn’t smile.

“No,” Bob replied. He didn’t ask how she’d known that he was here with friends; he understood that small town gossip flew faster than light.

“Well, you’d best get cozy,” she said. “The show starts in a little bit, you’ll want to be accustomed to the town by then.”

“The show?” he asked. They were in Bumfuck, Oregon. There was no way there was a show happening here, except maybe a kid’s performance of _Annie_ or some shit.

It would probably be best if Gerard didn’t hear about it, just the same. Bob considered one of his greatest lessons learned in his time with My Chem to be to never admit that he hadn’t seen this or that musical, or else he’d find himself in the back lounge, settled on a couch under Mikey’s Teen Titans blanket watching _The Sound Of Music_ while Gerard helpfully pointed out the lyrical genius of the melodies.

“Oh, dearie, you’ll go crazy for it,” the waitress promised. Bob thought briefly of one of his grandmother’s vinyl records and a soft, lovely voice ( _crazy for feeling so lonely_ ). “More pie?”

The decimated remains of his cherry pie looked like the opening scene of a CSI rerun. 

“No thanks,” Bob said, and wondered for the first time where his band was.

Outside, a classic black-and-white cop car cruised slowly by.

*

He didn’t have to look long to find Mikey.

After he left the diner, he saw a dusty storefront a little ways down with a guitar and “Roy’s Music” painted on the front window.

He jogged down the street, pushing past a middle-aged couple who glared at him like he’d just eaten a baby or something, and stopped in front of the music store. He’d figured he’d find Ray there, because Ray had a sixth sense for music stores, but peering in the front window, he could see Mikey standing near the back of the store. Ray was nowhere in sight.

He pushed in the door, jumping a little when the cowbell hung over the door clanged loudly. 

The inside of the store smelled of mildew, and there was dirty grey carpet on the floor. Faded posters lined the walls, most too sunbleached to make out what they had originally advertised. Here and there the words ‘Gibson” and “Fender” could be made out.

There was a wall lined with guitars, acoustic and electric alike. Basses, banjos, fucking ukeleles. There were pianos and drum kits set up, all cluttered together so you’d have to push aside kickdrums and cymbal stands just to get to any of them. There were bins filled with replacement strings and guitar picks and drumsticks and cleaning cloths and pretty much anything you needed for every instrument imaginable 

There were racks of brass and wind instruments. Stacks of amps. And when Bob leaned in for a closer look he realized that everything in the store was top of the line. There was shit here that had to be special ordered, that you couldn’t find anywhere, that Bob had never actually seen in person.

There were instruments sitting around that Bob didn’t even know the name of.

It was ridiculously incongruous. Why the hell would a tiny fucking town in the middle of nowhere have a music store filled to the brim with enough instruments for an entire festival? All top of the line?

And not a single CD or record in the store, he realized, looking around. No stereos, no recording equipment, no record players. No music being piped over the speakers, just the hushed sound of an air conditioner and the quiet conversation happening in the corner.

He startled as he realized he’d been in the music store for a while, and he hadn’t even looked in Mikey’s direction.

He shook his head at himself, trying to clear his thoughts, and walked decisively towards the back corner, where Mikey grinned at someone whose back was to Bob.

“Mikey,” he said. 

No one seemed to hear him.

He realized that he couldn’t quite make out what was being said, despite the fact that he was only a few feet away from them. He stepped closer. “Mikey!”

Mikey’s eyes barely flickered in his direction, and he kept talking, moving his hands around expressively. Bob leaned in closer, and he could hear a few snatches of conversation. 

“...won’t regret...” 

“..coming to the show....” 

“...watching for you...”

Mikey was grinning, wide and unselfconscious, and nodding.

“Mikey Way!” Bob practically yelled, and the guy closest to him stilled.

Mikey blinked. The grin faded from his face, and he furrowed his brow.

“Mikey, what the fuck, look at me!” Bob snapped. He was starting to get seriously weirded out. Why was Mikey acting like a fucking zombie? Even more so than usual. Mikey wasn’t the sort to play the “you’re invisible!” game for no reason. “Stop being bitchy!”

He felt kind of like he’d dropkicked a kitten when Mikey’s face fell into a look of alarmed confusion. “What?”

“Nothing,” said the dark-haired guy Mikey had been talking to. Bob looked over, and furrowed his brow. 

“Yeah, you should just come with us to the show,” continued one of the other guys. They had an emaciated look about them, Bob thought. And judging by their clothes, they were the rebel crowd of the town, he reckoned. He kind of let out a laugh.

“What?” Mikey said, looking around as though he hadn’t seen the room before. He was acting like he was coming out of a bad trip, but he and Bob had just parted ways less than an hour ago. He thought it’d been almost an hour, anyway, it was hard to tell time around here. 

He realized they were supposed to be back at the bus.

“We need to get back to the bus,” he said. “The driver said...”

“It’s fine,” said the dark haired man. ( _Don’t walk away in silence_.) “We were having a chat.”

He reached up and smoothed his hair down, keeping his dark eyes on them. Bob had _seen_ that face before. Not in person, but...

Bob stared at the man with dawning horror. Mikey looked at him in admiration.

“Holy fuck,” Bob said. “You can’t be...”

“The show is later, right?” Mikey asked. He turned to Bob. “We can’t miss the show.”

The man nodded in agreement, taking another puff off his cigarette. His neck was unmarked.

Bob reached out and touched his arm. The man raised his eyebrow, but didn’t move away. He was solid.

Ghosts weren’t supposed to be solid. Bob’s mind was just playing a trick on him, making him think that Mikey was talking to his dead idol in a two-bit town in the middle of the sticks.

“We have to get out of here,” he said, grabbing Mikey’s arm. “Now.”

“But...” Mikey protested, turning back towards the man who definitely wasn’t who Bob thought he was. Twenty-plus years dead rock stars didn’t hang out in music stores in fucking Oregon.

“Now,” Bob said, jerking Mikey’s arm and pulling him towards the front of the store. “We have to get out of here.”

Mikey followed along, looking forlornly back.

*

Back on the street, everywhere he turned, he got this vague sense of _I shouldn’t be seeing this._ Of _this isn’t happening. There is something wrong with this picture._

And every time he tried to pinpoint what it was about the scene that was _off_ , he couldn’t. Instead he focused on the safety pin dangling off the tall skinny dude’s jacket. On the light reflecting off the belt looped around another guy’s leather-clad hips. On the torn collar of a blonde’s flannel shirt.

“Where’s Gerard?” he asked, and Mikey shrugged.

Mikey was strangely unconcerned about his brother, and Bob began to feel the first tendrils of panic curling through his stomach. 

“We have to find him,” Bob said, because if anyone would be able to see what was wrong here, it was Gerard. This was just the sort of out-of-the-ordinary freakiness that Gerard’s brain was meant to understand in ways that Bob never could.

“Why?” Mikey said, looking longingly back behind them. Bob could still see the guys standing in the music shop, talking intently. 

“Why? What the fuck, Mikey?” Bob snapped. “We’re in Crazy-as-Fuck-ville and we’ve lost the band even though, as far as I can tell, there’s only one street in the whole goddamn town, and now you aren’t even _worried_ about your brother. Does that strike you as something to be unconcerned about?”

“Um,” Mikey said. Bob punched him in the shoulder - lightly, he didn’t want to bruise the skinny fucker - and got a flash of - something - in Mikey’s eyes in response. Recognition? Coherence?

“We should find Gee,” Mikey said decisively. “And Ray and Frank.” 

Bob was startled at the last bit, because Ray and Frank hadn’t even _occurred_ to him, not since before he’d entered the music store. Maybe he wasn’t as unaffected by this... place as everyone else after all.

The pie in his stomach churned, and before he let himself think about what he was doing he ducked into the nearest alley and forced himself to puke up everything from the diner behind a artistically skewed trash can.

“Are you feeling okay?” Mikey’s concern was reassuring.

“I just... don’t want to get stuck in Hades half the year,” Bob said, feeling stupid.

Mikey just nodded. “Yeah, we’re going to need you more than half-time.” Like he thought they were going to leave this place. Like he thought that everything was okay.

Until that moment, Bob hadn’t realized how much hope he’d lost in the few hours he’d spent roaming this tiny, strange town.

“We’re going to get out of here,” he said, meaning it. “We are.”

“We just have to find Gerard,” Mikey agreed.

*

It turned out that _finding_ Gerard wasn’t the difficult part.

He was sitting in the diner that Bob had left what felt like eons ago, chatting amicably to his waitress, eating pie.

“Hey guys,” he said cheerfully when he saw them lurking just outside the door. “You should really try this pie, it’s _amazing_.” He sighed as he took another bite.

“I think it’s time to go, Gerard,” Mikey said carefully. He was even more _aware_ now than he had been a minute ago, and Bob thought it had something to do with how, well, bizarre Gerard looked. Gee’s face kept cracking into a huge, campy grin, sort of like one Bob had seen him use onstage a thousand times.

“Like hell, motherfucker!” Gerard announced grandly, gesturing with a forkful of pie. “I’m in the middle of hearing a _story_ here.”

The waitress grinned at them, and Bob got a fleeting mental image of her in a giant, floppy-brimmed hat wearing round sunglasses. She pushed back her frizzy brown hair, and continued with a tale. It seemed to involve a lot of acid, some geese and a dude named Jimmy. Bob, having spent quite a few years now in the presence of rockers, was unimpressed. Gerard hung onto ever word as though they were gospel.

“Gerard, really. We have to go,” Bob said, tugging at Gerard’s sleeve.

“I have to hear how it ends,” Gerard replied, taking another bite of pie. Bob barely resisted the urge to throw the plate across the room. He might feel as though something were _off_ about this place, but nothing had been proven yet, and he wasn’t about to start with the crazy rockstar antics now.

Just in case he was wrong.

“Have you seen Frankie or Ray?” Mikey asked.

Gerard shook his head distractedly.

“Don’t you think that’s weird?” Bob tried.

This time Gerard didn’t even respond, just continued chewing on a mouthful of pie and listening intently to the waitress’s tale. 

Bob pulled Mikey to the other side of the diner, near the jukebox. “Well?”

“Well what?” Mikey squeaked. “I’ve never seen him like this before!”

“Maybe we could stage an accident. Make him think you’re hurt. That would probably snap him out of it,” Bob suggested. He had probably spent way too long around these guys if that was his first course of action.

“That sounds like a lot of trouble,” Mikey said, “and what if it just draws attention to us?”

Bob couldn’t argue with that. He glanced back over at Gerard. He’d been joined by what appeared to be the diner cook, who wore a tight white uniform and had a moustache. ( _Can’t stop me now_.) 

“I don’t think we’ll be able to drag him away.”

“No,” agreed Mikey, staring at the strangers chatting amicably with his brother. “No, I don’t think so either. I can’t believe...” he shook his head. “This place is fucking weird, man.”

Bob nodded.

“You don’t think they’ll hurt him, do you?” 

“They haven’t so far,” Bob said uncertainly.

Mikey wavered. Bob could tell it went against every instinct he had to leave Gerard here in _their_ hands. He wasn’t particularly fond of the idea himself.

“It’s like a weird-ass dream, isn’t it?”Mikey said in barely more than a whisper. “I mean, all these _familiar faces_.”

It almost sounded like he was hoping for confirmation. Like maybe Bob was seeing something different. Maybe he was; he didn’t know. Bob just nodded.

He couldn’t even let himself think about what all he was seeing in this place, or else that might make the lurking fear in the back of his mind _real_.

(Maybe there’d been a bus accident.)

Across the room, Gerard laughed and patted the hand of the cook.

*

Mikey kept looking back at the diner as they walked down Main Street. Bob was keeping an eye out for any of their other bandmates, but the street was strangely empty. Even emptier than earlier.

It was a fucking ghost town.

It wasn’t like he _didn’t_ believe in ghosts, not after fucking Paramour, but this... This was something else entirely. 

Maybe he was asleep on the bus, having a crazy-ass dream after too much fast food on the road.

The middle aged couple who’d glared at Bob earlier were shuffling down the street, looking as though they were on their way to the executioner. They paused when they saw that Bob and Mikey were going the opposite direction. 

“Aren’t you on the way to the concert?” the lady asked.

“We’re looking for our friends,” Bob replied. Mikey nodded.

“Everyone goes to the concert,” the man said.

“Everyone,” the lady agreed, nodding.

“It’s mandatory.”

Mikey raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, I didn’t get my permission slip signed.”

The lady shrugged. “It’s your own head.”

“We warned you,” her husband agreed.

“They’ll come after you if you don’t go.”

With that, they headed off down the road.

Mikey and Bob exchanged looks.

“The show is mandatory,” Bob said.

“They might be there,” Mikey said. “Let’s go get Gee.”

Bob nodded. He’d felt uneasy about leaving Gerard sitting in the diner, even with Mikey watching the place like a hawk to make sure Gerard didn’t slip away. They hurried back to the diner, which was now on their way to the place where they understood the concert was being held.

There was a ‘CLOSED’ sign in the window.

They peered through the glass, but the interior of the restaurant was dark, and it was clear that no one was inside.

“I’ve been watching this place,” Mikey said, voice cracking. “No one’s left.”

“Maybe they went through the back,” Bob said. He didn’t see why Gerard would leave through the employee exit, but stranger things happened all the time.

They hurried around the side of the building, around back, and looked. There was an unmarked metal door, though Bob didn’t see how they would have made it to the street without Mikey noticing.

“See, they left here,” he said, hoping Mikey didn’t think it through too much. He had an eerie feeling, like he was being watched.

Mikey nodded slowly.

In the background, music began, notes echoing through the abandoned town.

“We should go to the show.”

Bob took the first step towards the theater.

*

The music was loud.

Bob was used to the ear-pounding loudness of concerts, with and without earplugs. This one was considerably worse than normal. The stage was set up at the bottom of a hill, which was covered with benches. Few of them were occupied, however, as most of the crowd was mashed into the pit.

There didn’t appear to be any moshing happening. Everyone seemed to be standing, some dancing gracelessly, most looking listless as they watched the artists perform.

He walked down the hill. The performance was mesmerizing. 

He’d _dreamed_ of seeing these guys live.

The music was deafening, but it was beautiful.

*

Time ceased to exist while he listened.

God, _this_ was what concerts were supposed to be.

Around him, the crowd seemed to expand, infinite.

The dead sang.

*

Sometime, somewhere, he’d lost the guys again. The audience seemed to swell and rise and ebb like the ocean, and try as he might Bob couldn’t make out a single face in the crowd.

“The nameless faceless masses,” he muttered to himself, and tried to push through the crowd, tried to find the end or the beginning or even the sedate eye of this hurricane of _people_. 

“I’ve fallen into the abyss,” and he wasn’t even sure what he meant anymore. The music continued to shriek in his ears from on stage; louder and more raucous than he remembered any show being, in all his years working sound and touring and being on stage.

He could barely make out the song; he thought it was a bastardized version of “The Sky is Crying,” with four solos going on at once, overlapping and drowning each other out. Battling for dominance, he thought, fighting to the death.

Trying to be remembered.

Three different cocksure vocalists were shrieking higher and louder, battling amongst themselves for glory that no one in the crowd - was there anyone in the crowd, really? Bob couldn’t tell, can just make out the silhouettes of bodies rocking and swaying - was capable of providing.

He thought he’d maybe been here for lifetimes, and the faces on stage had changed more times than he could remember, a rock-n-roll yearbook. The nameless would-be stars who never made it shoved aside by names and faces he’d had emblazoned on his consciousness as “the best” and “never be another like” and “irreplaceable.”

Bob wondered if he was replaceable, and laughed for the first time since arriving.

(Maybe the bus didn’t catch fire. Maybe it was something subtle and sinuous, like carbon monoxide poisoning. Maybe he went in his sleep. Maybe he’s really back home, tucked in bed wishing he were on the road. Maybe)

The crowd surged again, and he was brought closer to the stage than ever, and there, there, by stage right, hair bobbing in familiar patters as he picked out a solo on an antique Fender that looked brand new, was Ray. Somehow, he was wearing his Black Parade uniform, just as ragged and worn as all of their costumes had looked at the end.

Like they’d actually gone to war in them, he thought, and watched Ray continue to shred.

Bob recognized the guys around him, too, faces twenty years dead and immortalized on thousands of posters. Hair almost as big as Ray’s. Metal gods, he thought, watching them crowd closer around Ray, offering hints and suggestions and one even reaching out to readjust Ray’s finger position.

Ray was grinning wider than Bob had ever even _seen_ and his solo soared through the amps and turned into another screaming voice in the cacophony, but he could see in Ray’s eyes that it all sounded perfect to him, better than he’d ever played, and he was going to keep playing like this _forever_. The guys around him cheered him on and the looks on their faces as the lights on stage flash were _evil_ , Bob just knew it.

“Ray!” he yelled.

He knew it was impossible, there was no way he’d be heard over the roar of the crowd and the shriek of guitars, the smashing of drums, the wailing voices crashing all around them.

“RAY!” 

He couldn’t _not_ try. He couldn’t give up and become one of the faceless crowd. 

“RAY!”

Ray didn’t so much as glance in his direction. His every bit of being was focused on playing. The dead men crowded around him, but Bob couldn’t give up, not that easily.

He saw a flicker of _something_ out of the corner of his eye, and he turned, trying to see what it was. Something familiar...

A familiar tattooed neck.

Frank, too, was wearing his Black Parade uniform, jacket unbuttoned and open to reveal a black t-shirt, dark against the dusty, faded material of his costume. Frank’s outfit had shown the most wear by the end, knees worn thin, material faded and holey from his tendency to throw himself around the stage, onto the floor, into equipment with complete abandon. 

Soldiers gone AWOL, Bob thought, and tried to run and catch Frank, yelling as he pushed through the crowd - more and more people seemed to be pushing towards the stage, cheering and jeering with equal measure.

Frank stayed just ahead of him, elusive as a ghost, weaving through the crowd with far more ease than Bob. Spry fucker, Bob thought, pushing past more people (just people, he couldn’t even _tell_ if they were men or women or fucking kids, it was creepy as hell and he kept trying to just _focus_ on one, knowing they had to be an individual _somehow_ , but unable to, unable to see anything but a _form_ ). If he could just go a little faster, if he could just reach a little farther...

Frank was so close.

Bob kind of lunged, trying to grab onto Frank’s collar, anything, just to get _contact_ with him and make him _look_ at him, make him _see_...

His fingertips grazed the material of Frank’s jacket - coarser than it looked, familiar - and he fell to the ground, panting and breathing in a lungful of dust. He choked, coughing and unable to speak as Frank paused, looked over his shoulder at someone who wasn’t there, and disappeared into the crowd.

Bob finally cleared his lungs, regretting every cigarette he’d ever smoked, and finally managed to call out, meekly, “Frank!”

He was already gone.

*

The music had long since turned into a steady, toneless ringing in his ears, and Bob had been trudging through the crowds - going in circles, he suspected, because the stage never seemed to be any farther away - for what seemed like years.

He could look over there now and see what would have been a top-ranking dream superband in many a stoner’s mind, and he didn’t care. He just wanted his band back. He wanted to be back on the stupid fucking cramped tour bus, going down another anonymous interstate towards another generic venue.

He wanted to go _home_.

He hadn’t caught sight of Frank again since he fell, and when he got up, careful to avoid being trampled by the crowd, he’d turned back to the side of the stage where he’d last seen Ray.

Ray was gone.

There was no sign of the metalheads who had grouped around him, no sign of any of Bob’s band.

He hadn’t seen a glimpse of them since.

He was trying - really, really hard - to not freak out. To not scream and break and try to rush on stage, because he knew from experience how easy it was to scan the crowd of faces from that vantage point.

He realized that he smelled smoke, faint and sinuous, and turned around, looking for its source when he realized it was _himself_. Well, it was his jacket, his Black Parade uniform, - when did that happen? - the same one he’d been wearing on the video shoot that’d almost killed him.

The back of one pant leg was tattered and burnt, and he could see the shiny white scar on his leg in flashes through the material.

It was strangely reassuring, like maybe (he wasn’t lying dead on a roadside) this wasn’t happening, not really, because if he were part of _this_ , then he wouldn’t still be scarred, right?

(Maybe the scar never formed. Maybe that’s the dream; maybe the infection _did_ get him after all, and he never left that hospital.)

He stumbled along, not even looking which direction he was going anymore.

(Maybe that was why he couldn’t reach his band. Maybe they weren’t here yet.)

He was lost.

*

Eventually, the loud buzzing in his ears reformed into music. The dead men on stage sang together, rather than against one another, mournful voices chiming together into a dirge.

There was a slow, heavy beat of the drums, and it seemed vaguely, incessantly familiar to Bob when he realized that it was a heartbeat, steady and deliberate.

It was louder than the rest of the music, the guitars and pianos and violins and trumpets, all the instruments imaginable all playing the same achingly sorrowful tune.

He looked up at the stage, and in the center of the band, shoulders thrown back and chin thrust upwards, was Gerard. His Black Parade uniform was spotless and new, and his face was painted bone-white, dark smeared circles carelessly drawn around his eyes. The gleaming white of his hair stood out amongst the dull, earthy colors around him, his uniform crisp and dark as the abyss against the faded denim and cotton of the band playing around him.

He was in the spotlight, and his eyes bore straight into Bob’s.

Bob only saw the blank deadness that had overtaken everyone here, but then...

( _Nothing you can say can stop me going home._ )

Gerard looked away, cocked a hip, raised an arm - typical stage behavior - and then looked back at Bob. This time, there was something there. Worry. Despair. 

...hope.

Gerard was hoping Bob had some way out of this. That he had some sort of plan, knew of some way to break them loose from this town’s spell, how to get them back home.

Gerard continued singing the strange archaic funeral dirge that filled the air. He looked naked without a microphone in his hand, but no one had a microphone, their voices amplified a thousandfold without electronics.

He looked like the leader of the army of dead men, Bob thought, as the stage lights cast shadows across Gerard’s dramatically made-up face and made him look like Death itself.

Then the crowd on stage shifted and surged and the limelight was on another man dressed in black, coal black hair and a snarl on his lips, looking infinitely more dangerous than he ever had on the cover of records Bob remembered seeing in his grandparent’s house.

He strained to glimpse Gerard again, but only saw a flash of white hair far on stage left.

Bob pushed through the audience, frantic, trying to reach the stage, trying to find _backstage_ \- there had to be some way to get to Gerard, had to be. If there were two of them, they could find the others. They could find Mikey. They could find Ray and Frank. They could go up against... whatever this place was, so long as they were together.

Gerard’s save-the-whole-world interview rhetoric popped into Bob’s head, and he laughed, laughed as he pushed deeper into the crowd.

Laughed as he touched something hard, something that halted him in his tracks, something other   
than endless anonymous human flesh. He looked down, surprised, to see a barrier. He’d reached the stage. He stumbled along, keeping a hand pressed tight against the metal rail, running as much as he could, shoving people away as he tried to find where this crowd _ended_.

It had to end _somewhere_.

His chest was burning and he could barely breathe and he clenched his eyes shut, lowering his head and not letting his hand break contact with the barrier.

He just had to keep going. 

And then...

His free hand hit thin air. He opened his eyes, and he was at the edge of the crowd. There were only a few forms milling around - he could make out their hazy faces, could tell some were male and others female. The identifying features were tenuous, but existed.

He doubled over, trying to catch his breath, to alleviate the burning. He’d been running... he didn’t even know how long; it felt like forever. It felt like he’d been in this _place_ , this fucking Rock n Roll Heaven, for eons.

He finally caught his breath, straighened up and...

He was at the edge of the endless crowd, and there was Mikey Way, standing awkwardly between two of the strange sorta-people.

“Mikey!” Bob said, not even expecting a response, but Mikey’s head turned immediately in his direction.

“Oh, hey, Bob,” he said, as though he’d lost track of time. As though they’d just seen each other.

“Have you been here the whole time?” Bob demanded. 

Mikey nodded, brow furrowed. “You’ve only been gone a minute. I figured you saw one of the guys in the crowd.”

“I...” Bob thought back to the eons he’d spent in the crowd. “I’ve been gone longer than a minute.”

Mikey shrugged. “Weird.”

“I did see the guys, though,” Bob said, and why didn’t Mikey think it was strange that they were both wearing the fucking Black Parade uniforms?

Maybe Mikey wasn’t unaffected after all.  
“You did?” Mikey sounded hopeful. “Gee was okay?”

“He was on stage,” Bob said. “Didn’t you see him? He was in the spotlight.”

“I didn’t see him,” Mikey sounded broken. “Why didn’t I see him, Bob? I’ve been watching the whole show.”

Bob, driven by an urge to keep hold of the things in this strange world that were _real_ , reached out and grabbed Mikey’s hand. “I think if we find backstage we can get Gerard back. Ray too, I saw him on stage.”

Mikey’s hand tightened gratefully around his own. “And Frankie?”

“I saw him in the crowd,” Bob admitted. “But I couldn’t get to him. He didn’t see me.”

Strange, how mundane the sentences were, when he wanted Mikey to know how he’d tried so hard to get to Frank. To get to any of them.

“Gerard will be able to find Frank,” Mikey said with more confidence than Bob felt. “Backstage it is.”

He didn’t dare let go of his grasp on Mikey’s hand, which was warm and damp and more real than anything Bob had come across since they’d left the bus.

“The bus,” he said.

Mikey raised an eyebrow at him.

“If we can get everyone - if we can get back to the bus...”

“We could leave,” Mikey finished, excitement turning the last syllable into a squeak. 

“I fucking hope so,” Bob said. “This way?”

Mikey took the first step.

*

After the struggle it was just to leave the crowd, finding backstage was alarmingly simple. Bob and Mikey simply followed the barrier as it curved towards the sides of the amphitheater, and soon enough they were pushing their way through a new crowd.

This crowd was made entirely of individuals, of famous faces and dashed dreams. Every feature distinct, trademark clothing, instruments carelessly held in loose grips. It was like every festival Bob has ever been to combined and multiplied by a thousandfold, and he kept his grip on Mikey’s hand as though it were his only lifeline.

They had only been searching for a few minutes when Mikey’s hand clenched tighter around Bob’s, and he hissed, “There!”

Bob jerked his head around to see a flash of white-blonde hair and ghost-pale skin. Mikey was pulling him towards the figure before Bob could even think, “Gerard.” From another corner of his eye, the opposite direction, he thought he glimpsed a familiar ‘fro, but refused to let go of Mikey. They couldn’t get separated, not back here, because Bob knew bone-deep that this place _wanted_ them separate.

Separate they couldn’t draw strength from each other. Couldn’t stay grounded, they way they would when they had the others to worry about.

Together they would stand a chance, Bob thought, and quickened his pace. The figure that _might_ be Gee ducked behind a careless tower of amps, and Mikey was running. Bob stumbled along after him, not relinquishing their tenuous connection. 

They swung around the stack of amps, and there...

There was Gerard.

Except, Bob thought, it wasn’t, not quite. The tilt of the head, the empty eyes, the ramrod-straight posture...

It was like looking at a 3D version of Gerard’s earliest Black Parade concept sketches.

Mikey wrenched his hand loose of Bob’s, and threw himself at Gerard. 

“Gee, Gee,” he kept mumbling into Gerard’s neck. “We’ve been looking for you. I’m sorry I left you in the diner.”

Bob kind of wanted to look away, but refused. (He might lose them again if he did.) Something strange seemed to be happening to Gerard, who kept blinking, rapid-fire blinks the more Mikey mumbled at him, and looked as though...

Looked as though he were waking from sleepwalking.

“Gerard?” Bob asked. “That you?”

“I... I think so,” Gerard replied, finally bringing his arms up to hug Mikey back. “I think...” he jerked his head around, banging his chin into Mikey’s head, and said, “Ow! Am I... Are we... Is this the afterlife?”

Bob hoped not. “No.”

Mikey finally let go of his brother, and took a step back. “Bob has a plan!”

Considering that three-fourths of Bob’s plan had been to find Gerard, he thought Mikey might be planting a bit of false hope. 

“I just thought we should round up everyone and get back to the bus,” Bob said. 

Gerard nodded. Bob could practically see the cogs turning, like Gerard had well-thought-out courses of action in the likelihood of being separated from his band members in a bizarre populated-by-the-dead town that possessed you.

“The most dangerous part is getting separated again,” Gerard announced. “So we should maintain contact with each other at all times. Also, we need to devise a search plan, because we don’t want to go around in circles and completely miss Ray and Frank. Have we had any sightings of them?”

Bob had known it would be a good idea to find Gerard first. He told Gerard about his sightings of their missing bandmates.

They decided to find Ray first. They were unlikely to find themselves backstage again after they left, Gerard thought, coming up with some overly-complex theory involving cognitive recognition that Bob thought could be more easily summed up as, “This place likes to fuck with your mind.”

Bob found it hard to not _stare_ as they moved around the backstage area. It was disarmingly like festivals he’d been to a hundred times, with vague flashes of recognition as famous faces slid past, only here... here the famous faces belonged only to the dead.

It was as disconcerting as it was terrifying.

Mikey’s grip on his hand was looser now that Gerard was here. Gerard had taken Mikey’s other hand, instinctively placing his little brother in the center, and Bob felt like a kid playing at Whiplash as he trailed along behind the Ways, arms forming a chain as they searched for Ray.

Finally, Mikey stopped dead in his tracks, causing Gerard to jerk one arm as he continued on unawares and Bob to nearly run into him. “There!”

A few yards away, oblivious, a familiar head of hair was bent over a guitar, carefully adjusting the tuning pegs between experimental strums.

“Ray!”

His head bobbed but didn’t raise up.

They pushed through the milling strangers. Bob ran into a wizened black man who looked at him with empty eyes ( _Standin’ at the crossroad, tried to flag a ride..._ ) 

“Boy,” the man said. Bob stopped in his tracks, though he kept his eyes glued to Gerard and Mikey, who were shaking Ray’s shoulders, grabbing the neck of the guitar to prevent him from playing. 

“Sir,” he said, because he knew that face, and if anyone here might know something about clawing their way away from hell, it might be this man.

(Bob remembered the sign they passed on their way in, the cheerful, kitchsy letters proclaiming this to be Rock n Roll Heaven, and thought maybe this man knew even more about escaping heaven.)

“I ain’t done nothin’ to deserve your respect, boy,” the man said. His voice was close; Bob thought he might be standing a foot away, just behind him, words drifting straight into Bob’s ear. He stiffened his posture and didn’t let his band escape his vision. He thought if he so much as twitched his head in the wrong direction, he might lose them again.

“You will have if you tell me how to get out of here,” Bob replied.

A gravelly laugh. “If’n I knew how to get out, do you think I’d be standing here?”

“But it’s different for me, because I’m alive,” Bob said. He hoped that saying it so blunt wouldn’t cause offense. Oh, fuck. Did they even know they were dead? He wasn’t even sure about _himself._

The old bluesman laughed again. “All you got to do, son, is not let your eyes fool your heart.”

“I don’t–“

“Sometimes a body will take too much stock in what it’s seein’. Sometimes you gotta ignore what’s in front of you to see what’s really there.”

“All these people are real,” Bob said. He was trying to turn the words around in his mind, figure out how they translated to an escape plan. He had a feeling that the bluesman wasn’t telling him to put on a blindfold.

“As real as you are,” came the easy response. “As real as they’re ever gonna be. That’s not the trick. The trick is knowin’ the difference between real and bein’.”

“Is there...” Bob began, but the bluesman was ambling away, guitar tucked up in his arms like a lifeline. 

Mikey and Gerard and Ray were talking, voices rising and falling and blending together in a whir of comic book references, horror movie tropes and breathless theories. Ray grinned wide at Bob, patted him on the back and said something happy, but Bob wasn’t quite listening. He felt further away from his band, his life, his _everything_ than ever was.

He didn’t think they’d ever figure out what the bluesman meant, or how to escape. How to get away from here. 

How to survive this.

He felt ungainly, uncomfortable in his skin, jacket tight and constricting around his arms.

They weren’t going to make it out of here. He _knew_ that they weren’t.

They’d done a lot of impossible things together, but this one... this was way fucking beyond anything they’d gone through before. Even the worst of times, even fucking Paramour hadn’t been this bad, and he was the only one who realized it.

Ray was smiling at him, and they didn’t even know where Frank was, and they were trapped.

Bob was alone.

*

Bob had never been the talker in the group; no one really noticed that anything was wrong with him when he just grunted agreement with Gerard’s elaborately concocted plan. He trailed along behind them, loosely maintaining his grip on Ray.

The hopefulness he’d felt earlier was gone. It had drifted from him just as he’d been swept from Frank in the crowd - the afterimages burned in his mind, and helplessness left in its place.

The bluesman had done what he did best, it seemed. Left his confused audience of one feeling adrift and out of sorts with the determination and happiness of his bandmates. He could see the way Gerard gripped Mikey’s hand so hard their fingers had gone even whiter than normal; he could see the way Ray followed them with utmost trust and loyalty. They were sure that they would find Frank.

They were sure they’d get out of here.

Bob wasn’t. He kept his head down, focusing on the ground beneath his feet rather than the dusty black of his bandmates’ uniforms. He watched the burned pant leg flutter around his leg with every step, and wondered if maybe he was the only one who was stuck here.

Maybe the reason they were so certain they could escape was because they _could_. Because they were still breathing out there somewhere. They had a future, and Bob could...

Bob could help them get there. 

They didn’t know he was damned. Maybe he was supposed to help. Be their rock. He’d done okay so far; until now, the place hadn’t fucked with him too badly.

And just like that, something clicked.

Gerard in the diner excitedly waving his hands around and laughing with the mustached man in white.

Mikey at the music store, attempting to look unaffected and trying to push glasses he no longer wore further up on his nose.

Ray, legs spread and head bobbing, rocking out with the metal gods.

They were being fucking _seduced_.

Just that easy, he knew where Frankie would be.


	2. Chapter 2

It was easier to get away from backstage than it had been to find it in the first place. 

Within minutes they were weaving through the crowd again, sticking to the fringes. In any other situation Bob would have felt ridiculous trailing along in a My Chem daisychain. Tonight, however....

He had to make sure they made it out of here. That was most important. He couldn’t let them know what he knew now, that he wasn’t going to leave. That he was here forever.

He was one of the crowd. There _was_ a difference between being real and being, and he was on the wrong side of that line.

They made it back to town. The hum of the concert faded in the background, and the locked doors and darkened businesses made the picturesque little town creepier than ever. There were a few small streetlamps buzzing quietly overhead, casting circles of yellow light onto the black pavement.

He looked down the street, and sure enough, their bus still sat where they’d left it, half in the dirt off just off the main road. He wondered briefly what happened to the bus driver, but it felt strangely unimportant.

They had to get to Frank.

In town, they let go of each other’s hands. Well, most of them did- Bob could see that Gerard still had a tight grip on Mikey (or maybe it was the other way around) and Ray kept everyone close, even if they weren’t holding on for dear life.

“Down here,” Bob said, and moved to the alley that he’d seen while looking for Mikey earlier. He lead the rest of the band down it, feeling strangely bolstered by the sound of three pairs of boots scuffling against the concrete just behind him.

The alley opened into a tiny back street lined with broken-down brick buildings. Directly in front of them was a building with a hand-painted sign leaning against its wall: DEAD CAN DANCE. There were Cinco de Mayo-style skeletons dancing around the letters, and the walls of the building were covered in indecipherable graffiti. A battered awning stood over the thick metal door.

Bob glanced behind them, sure enough, at the other end of the alleyway, the pristine street was still visible, perfect and silent as a movie set.

“Should we go in?” Mikey’s voice came dangerously close to cracking. 

“Maybe we should see if we can see inside? Make sure it’s not a trap,” Gerard suggested.

Bob shook his head. 

“If Frank’s in there, we have to go,” Ray said decisively.

Bob reached forward and tugged open the door. It was lighter than it looked; it banged open loudly from unnecessary force. Gerard jumped, startled, and then let out a nervous laugh. 

Music spilled out of the open door, abrasive and simple under muffled, screaming vocals. 

Ray took the first step forward. Bob saw his shoulders heave slightly under the steadying breath he took, and then he was inside, the black of his uniform blending in with the darkness of the club.

Bob motioned for Gerard to follow. The brightness of his hair and corpse-pale skin stood out against the darkness until Mikey, close behind, blocked it out. Bob stepped inside, feeling comforted by the smell of cigarettes and spilled drinks that greeted him immediately inside.

But the smell wasn’t quite right, and it took Bob a moment to realize that was because the only smell of unwashed bodies came from his bandmates. No vomit, no piss, no sharp tang of sweat.

A few more steps inside, and all he could see was a crush of bodies pressing against a low plywood stage. A crowd of punks with peacock hair and metal glinting from unlikely places, and Bob was pretty sure they were all ghosts.

(Dead, at the very least.)

“What do you call someone who’s dead but not a ghost or a zombie?” he asked. 

“Fucked,” Gerard replied, voice raised against the chaos of the concert. He was squinting into the crowd with the same look of concentration he always got when sketching, like he was trying to make the image in his mind appear fully-formed in front of him right then and there.

In the jumbled mess of limbs and flailing bodies, it was impossible to make out Frank. If only the little bastard was taller, Bob thought, feeling his band close in tight around him.

They always felt close, but in their uniforms, standing united against the crowd before them, suddenly Bob felt like they were less a band and more a team, assembled to stand up for...

He wasn’t sure what, because “going home safe and sound” wasn’t usually the mission statement of the sorts of teams that were featured in the movies and comics they read. He cut his eyes over to Gerard, who was still peering around intently for Frank. Gee wasn’t nearly as together as he was pretending.

None of them gave a fuck about these kids who were stuck here. The nameless crowd, the mouselike creatures who crept through this town, populating it and providing what every performer needed most. 

They were the same as all the dead men and women, only his band might still get out of here mostly intact.

There was a girl dancing at the edge of the crowd clad in safety-pinned lace and torn fishnets, and he didn’t know if she’d earned her place here or if she’d just taken a wrong turn into this unimaginable place. Here, in this place called Dead Can Dance, there was little distinction between the crowd and the performers. 

The dead danced with the living, the living laughed with the dead, and there was a mounting sense of chaos and tension that Bob had learned to sense from all sides of the stage, crowd and tech and band sides alike.

Something bad was going to happen here.

(They were the catalyst.)

Ray suddenly stiffened, leaning hopefully, and Bob followed his sight line to see a striped uniform jacket sleeve, dusty and familiar.

Ray immediately began to push through the crowd towards Frank, and Bob followed, helping cut a swath through the kids distinct enough for the Way brothers to follow close behind without chancing losing anyone in the crowd.

Pushing, shoving, elbows taken to the stomach and shoulder and cheek. Bob didn’t even feel it; he was focused entirely on getting his entire band together. Safe. Whole.

If they were together, they could leave. 

Further into the crowd, staying close enough to Ray that he got the occasional mouthful of fluffy hair, and he almost knocked Ray over when he stopped suddenly.

There. There. Just a few feet away, Frank stood. He was pressed in tight, side-to-side with a lean punk with a smirk on his lips and murder in his eyes.

The crowd was thinner here, and Frank stared at them without a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

“Frankie,” Mikey said, voice sharp and scared. “Frankie, we need to go.”

Frank shook his head sluggishly. 

The punk beside him smirked. ( _How many ways to get what you want_ ) His black leather jacket creaked as he crossed his arms, surveying them.

Bob felt the sort of surge of frustration that made his fists clench, and took a slow, deep breath. They just needed to get through to Frank, like they’d done with everyone else.

Another figure slipped out of the crowd and stood guard by Frank’s side. The two punks grinned at them like jackals from either side of Frank, who still just leaned against the rough plywood table with blank eyes.

Gee stiffened, shoulders square in his crisp jacket. Beside him, Mikey stood taller, chin lifted defiantly.

The crowd’s behavior had shifted, Bob realized. The steady guitar riffs continued, the vocalist still screamed endlessly, no more hoarse than when they’d entered, but now the pit had seemed to have changed patterns, was now circling slowly around them in a jumbled mess. It was like suddenly finding himself in the center of a whirlpool of angry kids, and he flashed back on every broken, bleeding kid he’d ever seen lifted out of a pit.

The punks surrounding Frank looked more predatory than ever, leering.

“Frank.” Gerard’s voice cut through the noise, direct and commanding. “Frank, snap the fuck out of it. We’re here.”

Gerard stepped forward, standing in front of Bob, Mikey and Ray like they were in a photoshoot. The tilt of his white-blond head and his ramrod-straight posture indicated that he’d stepped into his stage persona.

On either side of him, Mikey and Ray were standing taller as well, shoulders squared. Bob automatically joined them in posing, though he felt more outside of the band than he had since he’d first joined. (They were going to escape. He wasn’t.)

The moshing mass continued to churn around them, screams and heckles becoming clear through the constant barrage of sound. The punk on Frank’s left smirked.

“He’s ours.”

It took Bob a moment to realize that both Gerard and the punk had spoken simultaneously.

“Frank, get over here,” Ray tried. Frank’s head turned slowly, bobbling from the effort. His eyes were cloudy.

“Stop fucking around,” Bob said. “Get your ass over here.” 

“Now, Frank,” Mikey added, sounding only a little like he was pleading.

Frank didn’t react. It was fucking creeping, staring at a Frank Iero who looked for all the world like someone had finally found that mythical ‘off’ button they’d all wished for.

The punk laughed, staring straight at Gerard. “You’ve got no sway here, you bleedin’ ponce.”

“You have no power over me,” Mikey quoted softly, and Bob resisted the urge to laugh. 

Gerard felt no such urge to resist, and let out a sharp bray of laughter. “I don’t need any sway to get my friend back, motherfucker.”

He strode forward, and only stopped when the two punks stepped in front of Frank. Closer, it was clear that the one on Frank’s right wasn’t even really a punk, clad only in tight, torn jeans and an open denim vest. ( _I’m dirty, mean, and mighty unclean...._ ) 

Bob followed Gerard’s lead, and they stood in formation, united as one, glaring. The punks were nonplused.

It was kind of ridiculous, in a way. The whole time they’d been here, there hadn’t been any actual hints of violence. No one had physically harmed any of them, or shown any inclination to. In a lot of ways they’d been almost safer than they were when leaving a show, when Gerard would get mobbed by screaming kids.

But Bob knew that they weren’t safe. It wasn’t just because of the freaky shit. It was something about this place, about the way the dead looked at you like they were sizing you up. Like you were next in line. 

(Like he was already in the wings waiting for his cue to go on stage.)

They hadn’t been shown any violence, but they sure as fuck didn’t need to see blood and splintered bone to realize this was serious shit. Not when Frankie was slumped there, with glazed eyes and surrounded by dead idols. Not when he’d felt the crush of the nameless crowd, seen Gerard fucking commanding the crowd like he was born for it, seen Ray lose himself in the wailing notes coming from his guitar. Not when he remembered Mikey’s face in the music shop, ecstatic and uninhibited and childlike in the face of all he’d dreamed of.

Gerard was taking the wrong approach, he suddenly realized. Of course dead men wouldn’t be intimidated with the threat of, what, injury? Who knew if they could be injured? Gerard’s threats only worked on those who thought he might just be a crazyass underneath all that crazy makeup and wild eyes, and these... people... 

They weren’t the type to be intimidated even before they’d died.

“What do you want in return?” Bob asked, seemingly to himself. Gerard and the dead men were still having a glare-off.

Mikey and Ray both looked at him, confused.

“What do you want for Frank?” Bob said, louder and more confident.

The punks glared. Frank stayed the same. Gerard pursed his lips and said, “He’s ours, and we want him back.”

“You can’t pay our price.”

Mikey’s grin was sharp. “Wanna bet?”

It felt as though time were standing still. As though everybody in the room were holding their breath, waiting to see what was about to happen.

Bob belatedly realized that this was because all the music had cut off. No guitars, no drums, no screeching vocals. Everyone stood still. Waiting. 

After the constant crush of motion and noise, the silent stillness was near unbearable. 

“What’s your price?” Ray’s voice was far from intimidating, but there was an edge to his words that Bob had only rarely heard.

“We want what everyone wants,” replied the actual punk. The other slunk up beside him. The rocker’s feathered hair blended in with the punk’s short spikey do, blocking Frank from view. They twined their arms together, forming a barrier between Frank and the rest of his band. 

“You’ve already had your lifetime,” Mikey said.

Gerard laughed. “That’s right, boys. So what’s that leave?” 

He took a stalking step forward, uncomfortably close to the punks. He looked them over, hand trailing almost delicately through the air over their shoulders.

Bob never quite understood what came over Gerard once he stepped onto a stage. Nothing similar happened to him - sure, he could feel the music in his blood, pounding away as he pounded out the beats and rhythms, but underneath it all was just Bob, just himself, with the worries and thoughts of the rest of life stripped away to just be in the moment. 

Frank was always like a possessed, crazy version of himself, cut free from the constraints of normal society. Ray just took on a rock god stance and didn’t let lose, and Bob suspected that most of Mikey’s stage posturing felt more extreme within his mind.

But Gerard was like Jekyll and fucking Hyde, and right now, he was all Hyde. The stammering nerd disappeared, the earnestness and sometimes painful to watch sincerity faded to the background, and all that was left was a prancing, bold, fucking insane motherfucker who wasn’t afraid of anything, no matter how much of a pansy he not-so-secretly was.

Mikey raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest. Gerard continued to flit around the punks like a giant deranged hummingbird, grinning every time one of the punks brushed his hand away when he got too far into their personal bubble.

Ray crossed his arms as well. Bob just fiddled with his hands like he usually did, palming a fist and occasionally cracking a knuckle. The threat of violence wasn’t going to affect anything, but it sure as hell didn’t hurt to at least look tough. 

They were all playing roles, and that was his part.

The dead men were taking their sweet time with an answer, seemingly having a conversation with each other in sideways glances and lip snarls. Gerard seemed to be unnerving them slightly, like he wasn’t what they had expected.

Bob thought again of the bluesman and his slow gravely words. The difference between real and being.

“We want _life_ ,” said the punk. 

“We want escape.” The rocker’s body language mirrored the punk’s, all tough poses and careless snarls. Bob thought of the documentaries he’d seen, everything these fuckers had been through and done.

“We want to know about you,” the punk continued.

“How the fuck you made it here alive.”

Bob should have expected it. 

“We took the wrong road,” Gerard said, tilting his head as though considering something.

“Of course you took the wrong fucking road,” the punk snapped. “Everyone took the wrong goddamn road. That’s how we _all_ got here. What makes you special?”

“Are we?” Ray blurted out.

The slow turn of the rocker’s head reminded Bob of the freaking velociraptor in _Jurassic Park_. He half-expected the dude to grin and reveal pointy rows of teeth.

“You ain’t like us,” he said slowly. “And you aren’t one of _them_. So what the fuck are you?”

Bob exchanged glances with his bandmates. An idea was half-blossoming, uncomfortable as the uniform he was wearing.

Mikey laughed a little hysterically.

Gerard’s eyes were wide, whites showing vivid in the dark room. 

“We’re the Black Parade,” he said softly.

“Huh?” the punk said. 

“We’re not,” Ray said, picking uncomfortably at his collar.

“That was a story you made up,” Mikey said accusingly. 

Bob said nothing, just thought of the million and one interviews they’d sat through, listening to Gerard give his spiel about their album. It had gotten to the point where they all could believe it was about someone else, not about themselves, true, and they had all parroted Gerard’s story. 

Put on the uniforms. 

Given the kids a show.

 _Became_ the Black Parade. The weird feeling they all had after a while, the strange personas that seemed to come with the uniforms, the itchy, uncomfortable feeling that had lead them to abandon the uniforms mid-show, just so they could be _themselves_ again.

And here they were, uniforms back in place, standing in front of dead guys who wanted to know what made them different from everyone else.

Bob would fucking kill Gerard Way and his stupid motherfucking _ideas_ if it would make any difference whatsoever. Right now, though, all that was important was getting his band safely out of here.

The punks looked expectant, one tapping his foot as a subtle hint to get on with their explanation.

Bob had no idea what Gerard was going to tell them. They invented a band and became it? It was too fucking _Spinal Tap_ to be believed. They had magical marching band uniforms? 

Their slightly off-kilter lead singer had, in a fit of sleepless delusion, come up with a band that bridged the gap between life and death, and somehow, they had ended up in a real place filled with very dead people, and _became_ that band?

 _Bob_ didn’t even believe that shit.

Gerard struck his best diva pose - one straight from Liza, Bob was slightly horrified to realize he knew - and tilted his white-blond head. “We’re the motherfucking Black Parade, and you’re going to give us our guitarist back.”

For a self-confessed cupcake, Gerard had attitude in spades. Bob blamed Jersey - Frank had the worst Jersey attitude of the bunch, but even Mikey could break it out in the right circumstances. Bob personally didn’t get the trash-talking; he was of the put up or shut up school of thought, meaning he put up with a lot until he was driven to shut someone the fuck up.

The Jersey ‘fuck ‘em’ attitude seemed to be the right approach for dealing with this crowd, though, as they looked vaguely impressed for the first time.

Frank continued to sit motionless between them, but his head had stopped lolling listlessly and he seemed to now at least be aware of his surroundings.

It should have been utterly ridiculous, claiming the name of the Black Parade in a way that wasn’t just for show, but...

Somehow it wasn’t. At Gerard’s declaration, Bob felt.... revitalized. Like this was why they’d ended up in this hidden club in a secret town. Like this was why Frank had lead them here.

Like maybe, if they were together, they could _leave_.

Form a united front. Get the fuck out of Dodge. It made as much sense as anything else in this godforsaken place.

“Give us Frank,” he said, taking a step forward. Mikey and Ray moved closer, completely in unison. They were going to get through this. Bob was going to get his band to safety.

“We told you everything you wanted to know,” Gerard announced. 

“You don’t make any sodding sense though,” the punk replied.

“Them’s the breaks,” Gerard said. “Nothing in this fucking place makes any sense. Why the fuck would we?”

He was getting cocky.

“Come on, Frank,” Mikey said. He’d been staring at Frank, as though that would snap him out of it. He walked over to him - brushing past his brother, slipping through the punks as they began to block him off like the freaking cat that he was on stage - and prodded Frank.

Nothing.

“Seriously, asshole,” Mikey said again, hunching his shoulders as one of the punks moved in to grab him. He prodded harder, then kind of flailed his arms and whacked Frankie in the nose with one of his pointy-ass elbows while trying to evade the dead men.

Gerard immediately leapt into the fray, plowing into the punk who had Mikey’s shoulder in his grasp. He didn’t really affect the proceedings, just sort of face-planted into the safety-pin studded jecket.

Through the thrashing limbs that was the Way-punk smackdown, Bob could make out Frank blinking and reaching up to touch his nose, which was bleeding thanks to Mikey’s elbow.

Mere seconds had passed since Mikey had instigated the fight. Bob felt his sluggishness pass, and realized that he was just standing around like a fucking moron while _Gerard and Mikey Way_ fought. They had the combined badass level of a particularly ferocious kitten; their only asset was their attitude, which wasn’t going to last them much longer. 

They were going to get annihilated if Bob didn’t do something. 

He stumbled into the fight, mind still racing and feeling minutes behind his own fists as they knocked into one of the punk’s head. He pushed Gerard out of harm’s way, taking a whack to the underside of his chin that left him seeing stars for a bright second.

From there, his head finally emptied of thoughts and he could just _react_ to the fight happening. The world shrank to a whir of fists and feet and sharp pains and satisfying thuds; he hit anything that wasn’t wearing a marching band uniform, shoved and threw people to the floor. 

The majority of the crowd hung back, like they had no interest in the fight other than as an idle curiosity. Bob reckoned only three or four of the crowd, vaguely familiar faces, had joined the original two. 

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mikey and Gerard still lashing out against the punks. Ray’s fro bounced around in the background; Bob couldn’t tell what he was doing. He was mostly focused on not getting his ass beat into the stained cement floor.

He wanted to laugh; the world was simplified to hitting or being hit, bright flashes of pain in his fists, wrists, wherever he got hit. After all the fucking terrified tension of being in this hell-town, it was a rush of release. He pounded out his frustration and fear, even as he felt his lungs burning and chest heaving and his hair was plastered down into his eyes with sweat.

Then he _did_ hear a laugh, a stupid fucking familiar laugh, and he turned his head enough to see Frankie gleefully leaping on the back of one of the punks, pulling hard on a mohawk and punching awkwardly at the side of the punk’s face.

Bob let out a sharp breath, then grinned, and straightened up. He kicked at the guy he’d just knocked down, an asshole-ish move he felt he deserved, and said, “About time you snapped out of it, dumbfuck.”

Frank swiped at his nose, smearing blood on his coatsleeve, and grinned. 

*

“You guys, I think I have it figured out,” Ray said. He pushed a flyaway bit of hair away from his eyes.

They were huddled together in the coat room just off the front of the club. Bob reckoned the place had started out as the town’s fancy restaurant, but once it had been taken over by kids with a bigger desire for anarchy than fine dining, this room had apparently become used only for the occasional make out, judging by the scuffed layer of dust on the floor.

Frank had hastily shut the door and told them that he didn’t think any of the punks really knew this room was here; he hadn’t seen anyone enter it the whole time he’d been there. Which, as it turned out, had been the entire time, except for when they’d taken him to the concert. 

They all turned expectantly to Ray. 

Frank had part of his t-shirt shoved up against his nose. More for show now than anything else, Bob thought, because it had to have stopped bleeding by now. Mikey kept twitching uncomfortably and inspecting random parts of his body for injury. Gerard had a bloody lip he kept licking at, as though he didn’t even realize what he was doing.

Bob could feel aches and pains up and down his body, and he had a scrape on his eyebrow that kept slowly dripping blood into his left eye if he didn’t press his torn-off piece of Frank’s shirt to it, and his wrists felt like they were on fire, but he felt more alive than anything else. He was clinging to that feeling, knowing bone-deep that it probably was more an illusion than anything else.

“I was talking to some of the kids,” Ray said, which explained why he was injury-free, “and they said that the concerts can last for ages. Literally. And no one ages, they’re all the same as they were when they arrived.”

Bob didn’t want to think about staying here forever, stuck like this. He loved his band, but this wasn’t where he wanted them to end up.

Ray continued, “And they think if you stay out of sight of the Stars, which is what they call... you know, _them_ , then they won’t stop you.”

There was a pause.

“That’s the most retardedly obvious thing I’ve ever heard,” Frank said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Ray said. “Or did you come up with a brilliant plan while you were waiting for us to rescue your possessed ass?”

Gerard spoke up before they gave away their hiding spot with a shouted insult match. “We should just get out there. Stick to the shadows, sneak back to the bus. It isn’t that far.”

Mikey nodded his agreement. There was a brightness in his eyes Bob wasn’t used to seeing. He thought of him charging decisively into the fray, and wondered what, exactly, Mikey thought about this whole experience. If he liked that these were ghosts he could _actually_ fight.

“Let’s go,” Bob said approvingly.

They didn’t look back into the club as they slipped out the door; the music had returned, angrier than ever, and the crowd was screaming its approval.

*

Outside, it felt like a funeral home. 

Everything was too still, even for a nighttime small town. The shops were all closed, the lights were all off. The only sound was the quiet buzzing of the wrought iron lampposts that lined the street as they cast perfect yellow circles of light onto the pavement.

Their shoes scraped loudly against the street, and Bob was certain that they’d be caught. He remembered catching sight of a police car earlier and thinking something stupid about Barney Fife.

He sure as fuck didn’t want to meet Barney Fife now. 

There was a quiet echo, a near-imperceptible sound of music and cheering. The concert must still be going on, Bob realized, horrified at the thought of the nameless crowd still churning, still hollowly supporting the endless line of musicians.

He’d heard Ray say that the concerts lasted forever, but it felt more visceral somehow to _hear_ it. 

They continued, keeping a sharp eye out for any signs of life. Or death, Bob supposed. 

They didn’t make it far without hearing the low rumble in the distance; they were barely out of the mouth of the alley. At first, Bob thought it was just the echoes from the concert reverberating through the silent town, but Ray froze, eyes wide with alarm.

“It’s close,” Mikey whispered.

“Too fucking close,” Frank concurred.

Bob listened closer. The low rumble he heard wasn’t drum beats and bass guitar. It was steadier and lacking in melody - he almost laughed when he realized what it was. It was a _car_ , an old one, judging by the rumble of the engine.

It crept closer and closer, echoing off brick walls. They all kept looking around, trying to pinpoint its location.

“There,” Gerard finally whispered, pointing.

Down the street, they could see the black-and-white of the cop car as it rolled down Main Street.

The steady, heavy bass rumble of a souped-up old police car rose in pitch as they dove back into the alley, hunkering down in a doorway, trying to hide themselves in the shadows cast by a neat row of trash cans and stacked crates.

The ground vibrated as the car, bearing the word sheriff on the side in slanted letters, slid slowly past. They could see the figure within, smoking and wearing a cowboy hat. Light glanced off the badge on his chest.

The car disappeared from sight. Bob had just let out his breath of relief when the rumbling engine stopped, cut off. They exchanged glances as a car door slammed shut, and steady footsteps echoed down Main Street.

“You’ve got to be shitting me.” 

Bob plastered his hand over Frank’s mouth before he’d even realized he was moving. He held his breath, watching.

The sheriff stopped. Looked from side to side. Snarled up his lip.

They all hunkered down even more. Bob mentally cursed the white stripes of their uniforms, the brightness of his - and Gerard’s, now again - hair. Any bit of light shining on them and they were fucked. 

The sheriff turned. His silhouette had an impressive beer belly, and Bob kind of felt like giggling hysterically, thinking of white jumpsuits and sequins. He hoped they would stop Gee before he did something like that.

(He wasn’t part of that ‘they,’ though, was he? No one was going to stop Gee from dressing like a lunatic, because Mikey would just make a dry comment Gee would brush off, and Ray would support whatever crazy thing he was thinking that day, and Frank would let it happen just so he could have something new to laugh at, and then be an asshole over.

He didn’t think he was the backbone of this band, but he had been keeping a steady beat for a while, and whoever they got to replace him...

He hoped they could live up to the job.

...but what if they didn’t find someone? What if they fell apart? He didn’t kid himself into thinking he was the heart and soul of the band or anything retarded like that, and he’d seen them play without him, when his wrists flared up, but...

He remembered what they’d been like when he joined, and he wasn’t sure they could make it through another period like that.)

The sheriff chewed on his toothpick, and sauntered back to his car. “Ain’t no one here,” he snarled into his radio. “Try looking up near the stage again. Might’ve slipped through the barrier.”

He climbed into his car, and Bob could hear Mikey’s shaky relieved exhale. It wasn’t until he felt something wet and warm against his hand that he realized that he still had his hand clamped over Frank’s mouth.

“Gross, man, did you have to _lick_ me?” he snapped, wiping his hand off on his pant leg.

“Did you have to fuckin’ _smother_ me? Bastard,” Frank replied, sticking his tongue out again for good measure. 

Ray let out a nervous giggle, familiarly high-pitched, and Gerard grinned, teeth shining bright against the shadows. “We should try to get closer to the bus before they come back.”

Gerard offered Mikey a hand in rising, and they crept out of the alley down the street, trying their best to avoid the lightposts. All those hours of gaming in the back of the bus might have actually come in handy, Bob thought, as Gerard spotted the most shadowed path to the next alleyway and lead them to it.

They all kept looking at each other and grinning. Fucking giddy, just because none of them were fucking possessed by the town of the damned anymore. Because they were themselves and together and they stood an actual goddamn chance of making it to their bus without getting caught by the King of fucking Rock n Roll.

Bob felt giddy, too, even though he knew he wasn’t getting out. 

They made it past the diner, past the music store. Bob no longer wondered why there were no records inside; why bother with recordings when the real fucking deals were meandering down the street and giving nightly concerts? 

Outside, there were thousands - no, _millions_ \- of people who _fantasized_ about getting to see these people perform. Dudes in basements talking about dream bands. Girls sighing over the best combinations of musicians. Connoisseurs imagining the innovation that would happen when the styles of musicians melded. Music store geeks arguing over who would play lead, who would be frontman. Fans wishing for one more performance.

This was the goddamn dream, and all they wanted was to get the fuck away from it.

He thought of the faceless crowd again, and wondered if he’d become part of it, eventually. Was it made up of the audience alone, or were the forgotten musicians part of it, too?

What happened to the ghosts of forgotten men? The most famous held the positions of power here, just look at the fucking police chief. The lesser names, the ones slowly doomed to obscurity, they just seemed to... they just seemed to exist only on the stage.

They existed only when the audience was ready and receptive.

Bob didn’t want to think about what would happen to him once his band was gone. He sure as hell wasn’t going to be hobnobbing with the stars.

Where were all those musicians during the day? How did the punk crowd break into the underground? 

Where did the fucking audience sleep?

He must have stopped moving, must have forgotten their escape and what he was doing, because Frank was in his face, shoving at his shoulder and yelling for him to snap the fuck out of it, already.

He blinked slowly, his surroundings coming back into focus. Gerard had a look of extreme concern, Mikey was biting his lip and holding lightly onto Gerard’s sleeve, and Ray looked about four seconds away from freaking out.

“Huh?” Bob said, and Frank let out a sharp, crazed bark of laughter. 

“Come on, Bob, we need to get out of here,” Ray said carefully.

“Yeah,” Bob agreed. 

“Are you... you?” Mikey said, letting go of Gerard’s sleeve and taking a step forward.

“I’m fine,” Bob lied. They had bigger things to worry about than what was going to happen to his fucking soul once they got out of here. “Let’s go.”

Mikey’s brow furrowed, but everyone else took him at his word. 

*

It seemed like their next pause was hours later, but Bob reckoned it was mere minutes. They hadn’t made it very far; it turned out that no one in their band was secretly Batman, and slinking silently through the night was a bit of a challenge.

“What if...” Gerard stopped, then squared his shoulders and continued. “What if this is it?”

“We aren’t dying in this shitty town,” Frank said automatically.

“No, I mean, what if this is what’s waiting for us?” Gerard said. Bob stayed silent. “What if _this_ is what happens when we die? No heaven, no hell, no stupid fucking _parade_... Just eternity spent stuck somewhere doing the same thing day in and day out.”

“It’s probably... it’s probably, like, alternate versions of everyone,” Ray said, tentative. “Dopplegangers, even. Their souls, or whatever, are probably long gone.”

“Yeah,” Frank said quickly. “These are just, like, ghosts. Not the stuck-on-earth types, but the whatchamacallits. The shades. The impressions that are left on earth, like stains or something.”

Seriously, who would have thought that this band’s fucking obsession with horror movies would ever come in handy?

Mikey nodded. “Like poltergeists, only, you know, corporeal.”

“What this place needs is the fucking Ghostbusters. Think they’re wandering around somewhere?” Frank grinned.

Gerard shook his head, more to himself than in response to Frank. “What if this is the price we pay for success? What if fame, like... Corrodes our souls, until all that’s left for us in the afterlife is the need to perform and receive accolade?”

Mikey bit his lip.

Ray shook his head, hair bobbing. “Don’t even say that, man. We aren’t... we aren’t _corroded_. We don’t even _act_ like rockstars.”

“This place doesn’t seem to care about that,” Bob said quietly.

“What if we escape, and we still end up back here when we die?” Mikey whispered.

None of them were willing to look at anyone else.

“We really fucking need to get to the bus,” Gerard finally said, breaking the tense silence.

*

When the bus finally - _finally_ \- appeared in sight, they all broke into a run, racing down the fresh new pavement to the shoulder of the road where they’d left the bus a thousand years before.

Bob didn’t look back at the town. He figured he didn’t need to, he’d be seeing it again soon enough.

Still, he was in the back of the group - he still ached from the fight, and he’d never been the fastest of the group - and he could see the way his bandmates would glance back, eyes sort of wide and disbelieving like they thought that someone was going to materialize behind them to drag them back.

When they reached the bus doors, they were wheezing and laughing almost hysterically.

Frank kissed the door before trying to open it. Bob let out a sigh of relief when it actually opened. He’d thought... he didn’t even know what he fucking thought, that the bus was a mirage or something.

No one mentioned the bus driver as they clambered aboard, more eager than even the first time they’d gotten a tour bus after years in a van. 

Mikey sank down on the couch, fingers pressed deep into the cushions like he thought they would try to get away. Gerard sat beside him, clutching at one of Mikey’s white-knuckled hands and talking fast about nothing, everything in particular.

Ray gave the steering wheel a speculative glance as Frank bounced up and down and yelled, “Fuckers! We kicked your ass, motherfuckers! Hear that? We’re out of here! Hell motherfucking yeah!”

Bob finally let out the breath he’d been holding when the bus, contrary to everything horror movies had taught them about engines in haunted towns, started on the first try.

Safe. 

Just maybe they were really safe.

*

Bob wasn’t sure what he thought would happen. The bus lurched slowly through the field, tires spinning in mud as they tried to avoid getting stuck as they turned around. Maybe he would just... dissipate, and reappear in town, like Reese Witherspoon in that movie he’d watched that one time. Maybe he’d get jerked back, like a dog on a short leash. Maybe a fucking door would appear on the bus wall, like in _Beetlejuice_.

What he didn’t think would happen was nothing.

The bus jerkily pulled onto the dirt road they’d come in on, and, hitting branches the entire way, began the trek back to the real world. Clawing their way out of hell, he thought, watching the branches slowly scrape along the windows and screech along the metal sides of the bus like banshees.

As Ray got more confident, the bus moved faster, almost recklessly fast as it bumped along the dirt ruts of the road.

Their Black Parade uniform jackets were in a heap by the bunks. They all stripped them off, staring uncertainly at the fabric, as soon as they’d gotten on the bus. Bob had halfway wanted to suggest leaving the damn things there, but was worried that it would fuck with the guys’ chances of getting out of Dodge.

Finally Frank said, quietly and almost reverently, “Shit.”

He had kicked at the jackets, foot tangling up in the tangle of fabric and piping.

No one else had anything to add, they’d quickly decided that Ray should drive, and had all held their breath while Ray managed to turn the bus around and start heading back down the narrow, tree-lined lane they’d arrived by.

Bob couldn’t really make out the excited, nervous chatter of his bandmates. The constant stream of movie analogies pouring out of Gerard’s mouth, half only understood by Mikey, who had seen all the same ones during their shared childhood. It was something they did, make references to stuff no one else could really decipher, hidden under years of being an inside joke, and something that didn’t really bother anyone in the band, who knew what _brothers_ meant to the Ways. 

Frank had his phone out, pressed against the window, pressing the send button every few seconds, squinting at the signal bar. His addition to the conversation seemed to be a constant stream of cursing and repeating “Did that seriously fucking happen?” 

Ray’s high-pitched, nervous tones cut through the chaos, asking questions about driving the bus and direction and casting terrified looks into the side mirrors, as though he thought they would be set upon at any moment by God only knows who or what.

Bob hugged his knees to his chest and waited. 

It was only a matter of time before he was reclaimed.


End file.
